


Wily or Brilliant?

by agent_p_94



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Aziraphale's Bookshop (Good Omens), Chocolate, Deleted Scene: Aziraphale's Bookshop 1800 (Good Omens), Flashbacks, Fluff, Light Angst, M/M, Miscommunication, Pining, The Arrangement (Good Omens)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-27
Updated: 2019-09-02
Packaged: 2020-09-27 21:48:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 9,318
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20414830
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/agent_p_94/pseuds/agent_p_94
Summary: Aziraphale is opening a bookshop. Crowley wants to celebrate. But how are you supposed to buy a present for someone who only considers you a "mutually beneficial acquaintance?"





	1. Chapter 1

It took Crowley three months to choose chocolates for Aziraphale's new bookshop. At least half of that was spent in denial that he was even going to be buying Aziraphale chocolates at all. He knew he’d never been a very evil demon, but chocolates? How soft had he gone? Multiple times, he had walked past the chocolaterie on Shaftesbury with the little tinkly bell and the round-cheeked store manager, taken one look at the intricate confections, and immediately started a few demonic fights to get the image of raspberry swirls and almond crumbles out of his head. Chocolates! Next thing you knew, he’d be buying flowers!

(Maybe he should buy flowers…)

The problem was Aziraphale’s cheeks. When the angel smiled - which was often - his cheeks bunched up into the exact shape of the white chocolate truffles that had just sent Crowley fleeing from the shop. And the dimples! Crowley set the nearest signpost on fire to stop himself from thinking about the dimples. The problem was Aziraphale’s whole smile, really: the astonished gasp of delight; the crinkles at the corner of his eyes; the joyful innocence that birthed a thousand puppies and fat babies all at once. Aziraphale enjoyed things fully and completely, devoting his entire attention to them and savoring every moment. Crowley was the demon; Crowley was supposed to enjoy things. Three of the seven deadly sins were just enjoying things too much. He did enjoy some things. Fire, for instance. A good Spanish red. Italian leather. He had high hopes for steam power and great plans for the telegraph. But still, despite all the technological marvels of the eighteenth century, nothing quite matched up to what he felt watching Aziraphale enjoy things.

“Oh, for Hell’s sake,” he muttered, and unshoed the four horses currently negotiating the crosswalk. He shoved his hands deeper in his pockets and stomped past the chaos without a glance. Chocolate was a stupid idea. It was too much. They were - how had Aziraphale put it? - “acquaintances in a mutually beneficial partnership”. He stuck out his tongue and gagged. Acquaintances certainly didn’t merit Shaftesbury chocolates. He marched into the nearest food store and demanded their cheapest chocolates with such venom that the store clerk started to cry. Good, he thought. This was demonic. He paid the clerk in fake bills and marched back out with some of his old swagger returning.

The next weekend, Aziraphale dropped him a card asking him to heal some children in Worcestershire blinded by a plague that Crowley was supposed to put into the water. In exchange, Aziraphale would “do whatever it is you’re meant to do in Brighton.” What Crowley was meant to do was sink a ship, which would have been simple enough, except that for some ineffable reason, he was also supposed to be captaining the ship at the time. He’d gotten the missive in the morning and had spent most of the day trying to work out a way to sink his own ship without getting wet. He tugged at his cravat with a grimace. It was silk - Chinese silk, which was exceedingly in fashion and extravagantly expensive. Silk took to water even worse than Crowley himself. He could miracle any stains away, but it wasn’t the same, somehow. He looked back at the note. “P.S. I know you hate the ocean, but how do you feel about seafood? There’s a new restaurant in Kensington that’s supposed to be quite good. The wine list is also extensive. Would Thursday next be agreeable?”

He stared at the note for a minute before crumpling it up, lighting it on fire, and tramping over to the drawer where he’d stored the chocolates. He pulled it open with such force that the whole drawer came loose and slammed it down atop the desk. The red wrapping on the box had creases from reuse, and one of the corners had a hole in it. He ripped the paper off, miracling it away along with the ashes from the note, and removed the lid. Two of the nine chocolates were missing. Two more had melted into a puddle of goo. He stuck a finger in it and grimaced. Had it melted? Surely food wasn’t supposed to do that? He opened a window and flung the box out into the street. He was already pulling on his coat to go down to Shaftesbury.

Out of curiosity, he tasted the chocolate that had melted onto his finger. It tasted like… Well, it tasted like food, which was to say that it didn’t taste like much. He could taste it if he made an effort, but it never really seemed worthwhile. It would not, however, taste the same to Aziraphale. He miracled the melted chocolate away and marched to Shaftesbury with such vicious determination that he was reported to the police three separate times for “suspicious walking.”  
He banged the door open, settling the bell clanging. “Hello, sir! How may I help you today?” asked the disgustingly jolly clerk. 

Crowley hadn’t made it more than a step past the doorway. He didn’t know what to do with his hands. Snakes didn’t have hands - that had been one of the benefits of being a snake. “I want to buy some chocolates,” he announced, trying and failing to sound scathingly obvious.

“Well, you’re certainly in the right shop!” The clerk chortled to himself as though he’d made a joke. Crowley gagged internally. “Anything you’d like in particular? We currently have some delightful mint cremes."

"Mint? No, mint's no good," said Crowley, less because mint was no good than because he was regretting his very existence. He fidgeted with his hat. "Well, if mint's the best you've got to offer, I really don't think this is going to work out. Good -"

"Ooh, wait a moment!" The clerk reached behind the counter and slid out a tray that looked, to Crowley, identical to all the other trays. He beamed at the demon. "I do have one particularly special truffle today. It's called a cranberry."

Crowley, unimpressed, blinked. "A what?"

"A cran berry," he enunciated. "It's quite the thing in the Americas, I'm told. I've just got a shipment of dried ones. They're a bit like a raisin, but tarter. Would you like to try one?"

"No, no," said Crowley, taking a step back. He tapped his fingers on his leg. Half of him still wanted to run out the door. "This is new, you said?"

"Yes, as far as I know, this is the first shop to try mixing them with chocolate! I've always fancied myself a bit of an inventor, you know." Again he guffawed, his belly shaking. Crowley needed to get out of there. He opened his mouth to say goodbye but couldn't quite manage it. The only spectacle better than Aziraphale enjoying things was Aziraphale enjoying something new. The first time he'd tried pineapple, he'd raved about it for weeks, and he still hadn't gotten over the mango. Crowley ground his teeth.

"Oh, alright," he relented. "I'll take three of the - what was it? Crabberry?"

"Cranberry," the shopkeeper corrected him.

"Whatever - also three of the raspberry -"

"Raspberry creme or raspberry jam?"

"Ah - jam, I think."

"Dark chocolate or milk?"

"Milk…"

"Sprinkles on top?"

"Oh, for Hell's sake, just pick one!" Crowley burst out. He relented at the shopkeeper's astonished impression. "I don't really eat chocolates, see - they're for a - for a -"

The shopkeeper waited with an annoyingly knowing smile as Crowley struggled to fill in the blank.

"...for an acquaintance," he finished lamely, unable to cross the chasm between "acquaintances in a mutually beneficial relationship" and "friends." 

"Yes, of course." The shopkeeper tapped his nose and winked. Crowley rolled his eyes skyward, then realized his mistake and rolled them downward instead. "If you're looking for something to round it out, I'd suggest the orange liquors -"

Crowley, whose estimation of chocolate increased exponentially once learning alcohol was involved, agreed.

"-and perhaps the dark chocolate squares to finish it off."

"Too boring," said Crowley.

"The mint, then?"

Crowley had taken against the mint. He cast around the shop and pointed at a tray of rounded chocolates topped with crystalline yellow cubes. "What about those?"

"Oh, the lemon? Nice and light."

The one time Crowley had been inside Aziraphale's flat, he'd unwrapped most of a bowl of lemon drops to give his hands something to do while Aziraphale hunted for a book on fungi that was "absolutely crucial" to Crowley's mission in the Scottish highlands. Crowley had lost the book, littered the wrappers around Leicester Square, and spent his trip to the Highlands stupendously drunk off bad Scotch in an effort to forget the whole experience. "Yes, alright, that's fine," he said. He glanced over his shoulder at the door as though Hastur might be skulking outside. "How much for the lot?"

The price was so outrageous that Crowley felt little compunction paying him in lead coins. The shopkeeper wrapped the chocolates in a red-striped bow, which made Crowley so disgusted that he made all the fresh fruit in the back mold over. He didn't bother to thank the clerk and stuffed the box as deep into his blasted tight waistcoat as possible before stomping back out to the street. He stood in the middle of the pavement and took a deep breath of smoggy London air in an effort to rid his lungs of the chocolaterie's sugary goodwill. Nearby, a group of children trying to set newspaper aflame using a magnifying glass jumped back as fire sparked towards the sky. Crowley hissed. He was going to need some really evil deeds tonight to make up for this.

He spent the next several days holed up with trading contracts from the British East India Company, more because it was complicated than because it was evil. He and Aziraphale were both rather of the opinion that thwarting the East India Company tended towards the good side of things. Heaven and Hell couldn’t seem to make up their mind on the matter. Heaven tended to side with monarchies, but it was decidedly against slavery, whereas Hell was all for violent subjugation of unarmed peoples but couldn’t quite get behind supporting the British. They had compromised by leaving it more or less alone. In fact, Crowley was carrying out his latest misdeed without Hell’s oversight, and had planned it more to bother France than to have anything to do with the East India Company. He was changing order forms and shipping routes so that ten ships would converge on Port Said just as Napoleon was trying to pull his ships out. Crowley expected that the East India Company’s merchant ships would stand little chance against Napoleon’s forces, but he hoped Napoleon would be irritated about it. He had nothing against Napoleon, personally, but disliked the French on principle.

There were, of course, very easy ways to make this happen. He could simply miracle ten ships straight to Egypt and be done with it. However, he needed a distraction. He'd challenged himself to find ten different combinations of delays, reroutes, and unexpected resupplies that would have the right effect. He'd spent the last nine hours staring at tidal charts off the Moroccan coast. In this time, he had also drunk three bottles of port, including the one he'd been saving to give Aziraphale along with the chocolates. Realizing this had sent him deep into the fourth bottle. At least the chocolates, secured in a block of ice, were safe. He rubbed his snake's eyes and hissed at the map. The edges burst into flame. "Oh, sod this," he said, slamming his fist on the table. "I need a walk."

A good hour of slouching through the London fog later, he found himself in front of Aziraphale's bookshop.

The sign was nearly done. "A.Z. Phale And Co." was spelled out in neat white lettering above the double doors. The window displays had been dusted, and peering through the windows, Crowley could see that the boxes were halfway unpacked. He materialized a lockpick from nowhere and quickly broke inside, this method seeming slightly more demonic than simply unlocking the door. 

Inside, the shop was musty, cramped, and cluttered, just like Aziraphale’s flat. It wasn't even unpacked and it already smelled like the angel. Crowley stayed near the door, unable and unwilling to disturb the organized chaos. Books were stacked on every available surface except the bookshelves: the front counter; the rolling ladder in the back; the windowsills; the chandelier. He pictured Aziraphale puttering around the shop, patting his waistcoat and making delighted humming noises. He gagged. Across the street, three lampposts spontaneously combusted. He let himself back out of the shop before he could think any more nauseating thoughts but made sure to lock the door behind him. Blast and bloody hell; he was going to have to get the angel flowers after all.


	2. Chapter 2

Aziraphale puttered around his brand-new bookshop, patting his waistcoat and making delighted humming noises. The bookshop was a mess. Books were stacked on every available surface except the bookshelves. He kept trying to arrange but was so easily distracted that he’d managed to shelve only three books in the past three hours. Most recently, he had become enamored by a volume French poetry composed entirely of metaphors involving food. Aziraphale could not say he had ever taken particular delight in “eyes steaming with the first sight of one’s lover,” but he had certainly experienced the accompanying thrill of “a hungry diner presented with the brioche of which he has dreamed since early morn.” Aziraphale had spent many early morns dreaming of brioche. Also baguettes, and croissants, and custard tarts, and eclairs, and mousse, and …

“No. Aziraphale, stop it,” he told himself sternly, clapping the book shut. “You are opening this bookshop in two days. You do not have time to go to France.” He climbed to the top shelf on the rickety ladder that he suspected was held together more from miracles than stable construction and placed the book at the far corner of the shelf. There. Four books done. He dusted his hands off on his waistcoat and beamed.

The next box he opened was primarily history, which was boring enough that he actually managed to shelve the lot. In Aziraphale’s opinion, history books should be counted as fiction. He’d been around for history, and most of it, he thought, was better forgotten. The volume he was holding now, for instance, presumed to “Enlighten the Dark Ages,” but Aziraphale couldn’t remember a single thing worth enlightening in any of those five centuries. He had spent most of them hiding out from the Vikings and trying to convince Gabriel to let him go to Cordoba instead (the dates were simply scrummy). If he remembered correctly, Crowley had spent most of the Dark Ages asleep. Aziraphale stuck the book in the far back of the farthest shelf and tried to shake off the memory of salted cod.

He felt very accomplished until he turned around and saw the stacks of boxes still waiting to be opened. The sight made him wilt. There were still the books he’d left at his flat, too. “Oh dear,” he said aloud. “Two days… I may need to push back the opening after all.”

Outside the dusty windows, a clock struck noon. Aziraphale jumped. “Noon already?” he exclaimed. Well, he was getting a bit peckish, and anyhow he couldn’t be expected to work on an empty stomach. He let himself out of the shop, trying not to look at the boxes, and locked the door carefully behind him before heading down towards his favorite cafe, humming again.

An hour later, he returned with a stomach full of a mandarin salad and a delightful bit of cherry pie. While he’d been out, the sign painter had come by the finish up the sign. “Jolly good!” Aziraphale called at him, making a mental note the bless the man’s entire extended family. “It looks absolutely tip-top!”

The man grunted without looking away from the flourish under “Bookshop.” Aziraphale beamed at the sign and then faltered. He was quite sure that when he’d left last night, it had read “Mr. A.Z. Phale.” Now he saw the “Phale” had been replaced with “Fell.” Undoubtedly one of Crowley’s little jokes. Imagine him, an angel, going around as Mr. Fell! Well! He raised a hand to change it and then paused. Actually, it was rather amusing. And he could always change it back later. His smile restored, he left the sign in place and re-entered the shop.

The next box he opened contained his hand-picked first editions of prophecy, which Aziraphale found endlessly entertaining. He’d attempted to read them aloud to Crowley one time, and the demon hadn’t had nearly the same appreciation for the finer points of human delusion. “Look here - ‘Conflict at Reims, London, and pestilence in Tuscany’ - well, there’s always pestilence in Tuscany, isn’t there, that’s hardly impressive, and yet people are lining up around the block --”

“Actually, Pestilence is in Mongolia at the moment,” Crowley had yawned. As per usual, he was flung across his chair in complete disregard for the structure of the furniture. A half-empty glass of madeira swung from one hand. 

“Oh, you’re no fun,” Aziraphale had said, swatting him with the book. 

Crowley had taken another swig of the madeira and adjusted his glasses. They were Aziraphale’s second least favorite of the various shades the demon had tried over the years, being a bit too small in a way that squeezed his face together, and innocently round in a way that really didn’t suit him. Aziraphale’s least favorite had been the monocle. Specifically, it had been the combination of two monocles, which even Aziraphale could see made absolutely no sense. Crowley had worn this on only one memorable occasion, shortly after he’d discovered gin.

“I,” Crowley said grandly, “am loads of fun. What’s not fun is sitting here reading about things that have already happened, or rather, haven’t. Come on, angel, ditch the book and let’s go out somewhere. Look, it’s stopped raining. We could go to the Thames.”

“You don’t like the Thames,” said Aziraphale, who liked the Thames very much. Specifically, he liked a little food cart near the Thames that sold delectable iced biscuits. He peered out the window. He was sure it had been cloudy a moment ago. He squinted at Crowley. “Wasn’t it supposed to rain all week-end?”

Crowley shrugged - really, his entire body was already arranged into a shrug - and peeled himself off the chair. “Beats me, angel. Weather’s ineffable, too, innit?”

Crowley or no Crowley, Aziraphale still loved his prophecies. He patted the leather-bound “Floods and Famines of the Far East,” which had gone no further East than Frankfurt. Humans were so parochial.

Behind him, the bell dinged. He must have forgotten to lock the door. “I am afraid the shop will not be open until Friday, good people,” he said, placing the book on the shelf without turning around. “But we will be having a grand opening immediately after lunch…”

“We aren’t here to buy books, Aziraphale.”

Aziraphale’s whole face dropped with the expression of someone who’s just realized they’ve walked off the edge of a cliff. “Oh,” he said. Holding the book with both hands as though it had any chance of shielding him, he turned slowly around. Gabriel and Sandalphon - both of them! - stood in his doorway, in his shop, wearing impeccable white suits and inscrutably benign expressions. Aziraphale swallowed. He couldn’t think of one reason why they would be here; he could think of about a hundred. “Listen,” he said, “if it’s about that business in Paris, um, it wasn’t my miracle --”

He realized halfway through this sentence that this explanation was, perhaps worse than the truth. If they found out that Crowley had been performing miracles around him - for him - there would quite literally be Hell to pay. Aziraphale gripped the book tighter and tried not to think about the types of torture Hell might have in store for a demon who’d dared to be - to be --

“I have no idea whereof you speak, oh Angel of the Eastern Gate,” Gabriel said. It took Aziraphale a flustered moment to remember that the Angel of the Eastern Gate was him. “We are here with good news.”

“Oh!” Aziraphale breathed a sigh of relief and stopped imagining Crowley being stretched on the rack while having to watch some other demon shred all his nice suits into tiny ribbons. “How lovely.”

Gabriel beamed and held out both hands as though welcoming Aziraphale into a hug. “We’re bringing you home.”

There was a ringing in Aziraphale’s ears. Surely he hadn’t heard right. He pulled on his right ear.

“Promoting you back Upstairs,” said Sandalphon.

No, he’d definitely heard correctly. Aziraphale glanced upward and then back at the book in his hands. Upstairs, he thought. The syllables landed like lead. The angels were both watching him with expectant smiles. He cleared his throat. “I’m opening this bookshop on Friday,” he said. “If Master Hatchard can make a go of it, then I think I can really…”

“It’s an excellent idea,” said Gabriel. Aziraphale barely managed to stifle a noise of surprise. “Whoever replaces you… down here…” He waved a hand to the floor as though pointing a pile of refuse -- “can obviously use it as a base of operations.”

Aziraphale felt as though someone had punched him in the stomach. He cast a desperate glance around the shop. He’d built it entirely miracle-free, picked out the shelves from scratch, shopped around the flea market for little knick-knacks to put in the corners. Crowley had helped him hang the chandelier. “Use my bookshop?” he said weakly.

Gabriel’s smile was starting to look a little forced. Sandalphon had nearly given up smiling at all. Aziraphale wondered wildly if either of them had ever read a book. Could they, he wondered, read at all? 

“You’re being promoted,” said Gabriel with a hint of impatience. “You get to go home.”

“I can’t imagine why anyone would want to spend five minutes longer in this world than they had to,” Sandalphon added, tossing a look of such disgust out the window that the bushes across the street wilted. Aziraphale opened his mouth to list several reasons why five more minutes wouldn’t be a bad thing - sushi; crepes; Beethoven’s seventh symphony - and then decided against it.

“Aziraphale has been here for almost 6000 years,” Gabriel said to Sandalphon, rocking forward and back on his heels. “We must applaud such devotion to duty. Ah!” He raised a finger as though a revelation were imminent, then reached into a pocket and pulled out a tiny gold box. He gestured Aziraphale forward. Aziraphale didn’t move. He seemed to have lost all feeling in his limbs. Gabriel wasn’t watching. He lifted the lid off the box with a flourish. “And it hasn’t gone unnoticed,” he finished, beaming at Aziraphale.

Inside the box was a little gold medal with a pair of wings. “I don’t want a medal,” said Aziraphale with a flustered smile.

“That’s very noble of you,” said Gabriel, but didn’t shut the box.

Aziraphale cast around for something - anything - that would get Gabriel and Sandalphon out of his shop. Could he knock over one of the shelves, maybe? Pretend he’d been discorporated? Perhaps a commotion in the street? What would Crowley do? Set something on fire, probably. Aziraphale didn’t like thinking of fire so close to his books, but if the choices were between that and Upstairs…

As though summoned by his thoughts, Crowley slouched into view at the door.

Aziraphale’s eyes grew wide. Crowley waved cheerily, which, for Crowley, meant he sort of shrugged his arm upwards in the general direction of a wave. He was holding a package wrapped in brown paper that was dripping onto the sidewalk. Aziraphale forced his gaze back to the angels. He couldn’t let them see Crowley. All his earlier fears returned with a vengeance. In the nearly eight hundred years since the demon had first proposed the Arrangement, Aziraphale had had plenty of time to think up all manner of dreadful punishments that Hell might inflict on Crowley if anyone ever got word he’d been consorting with an angel. He took a deep breath to start a fire after all - he’d gotten rather good at it, after eight hundred years - and then he had a better idea.

“But only I,” he said, his initial hesitation lessening as he warmed to his subject, “can properly thwart the wiles of the demon Crowley.”

Crowley looked offended. He pointed to the package and mouthed, “Chocolates!” Aziraphale gave him a look that he hoped Crowley would understand to mean, “Not now, Crowley!” (It also meant, “Chocolates don’t drip all over the pavement, Crowley!”)

“I do not doubt that whoever replaces you will be as good an enemy to Crowley as you are,” said Gabriel, barely disguising his growing impatience. “Michael, perhaps.”

Crowley’s jaw dropped. “Michael?” he mouthed, horrified. “Michael’s a wanker!”

Aziraphale thought that if this went on any longer, he might discorporate himself from sheer embarrassment. (Also, when had Crowley met Michael?) “Crowley’s been down here just as long as I have, and he’s…” How would Gabriel describe a demon? “Wily,” he said. “And cunning,” he added for good measure, “and brilliant, and…”

“It almost sounds like you like him,” said Gabriel with a chortle, watching Aziraphale very closely. 

Bugger, had he really said brilliant? He tried very hard not to look at Crowley. “I loathe him,” he said with as much feeling as he could muster. “And, despite myself, I respect a worthy opponent…” No, that was no good; Gabriel was looking suspicious again. “Which he isn’t, because he’s a demon, and I cannot respect a demon. Or like one.” He shuddered and tried to look as though the possibility that an angel might be rather fond of a demon was the most shocking, horrifying, and entirely revelatory idea he’d ever heard.

“That’s the attitude I like to hear!” said Gabriel, back to beaming. “You’ll be an asset back at head office, I can tell you that.”

Aziraphale smiled weakly. He dared a glance behind Gabriel. Crowley had gone, thank Heaven (or was that entirely appropriate?). At least, with Aziraphale back Upstairs, Crowley would be safe. You couldn’t be punished for an Arrangement that didn’t exist. Aziraphale tried to look pleased as Gabriel put the medal around his neck. The best he managed was only mild dejection. 

“So… We’re going straight back, now? Before the grand opening?” he asked with the last spark of hope still remaining.

“Well, soon,” said Gabriel, shooting a look at Sandalphon. “We’re just going to stroll down to Cork Street to see my tailor.”

“Oh. Alright.” Aziraphale tried not to look too eager as he let them out of the shop. “See you soon, then. Can’t wait! Pip, pip!”

As soon as the door was closed, he put his head in his hands. Upstairs. He’d just ordered a full set of Swimpton’s Prophecies for the Middle-Aged Warlock, and now he’d never get to read it. Probably his shop would be turned into a butcher’s or something. Actually, he wouldn’t mind that so much. He only hoped it wouldn’t be a tailor. Well, maybe if Crowley opened it. Oh, dear. He would really have to get out of the habit of thinking of Crowley.

He took the medal off and hung it on the coat rack. Coats. That was another thing you didn’t need in Heaven, the weather being what it was. He would miss coats. He liked the big fluffy coats with tartan linings that kept out all the wind from here to Mongolia. Crowley was always getting on him about the tartan, but - well, no, there, he went, thinking of Crowley again. He sighed. It would be, he thought, entirely un-angelic to set the tailor’s on fire, and discorporation would hardly stop either of them. “Oh, dear, oh, dear, oh, dear,” he said, wringing his hands. It was going to be a very long eternity indeed.


	3. Chapter 3

Crowley was in the sort of mood that generally led to large amounts of property damage. Over in the West End, the pipes burst under three separate tenements, and a nearby lady’s knitting circle found all their knitting needles had turned to snakes. “Wiles,” he muttered to himself. “Wiles!” he repeated with such viciousness that several surrounding pedestrians abruptly crossed the street. He’d show them wiles; he’d show them the wiliest wiles the world had ever seen. (In Hyde’s Park, all the statues uprooted themselves and started chasing after astonished nannies.) “WILES!” he bellowed at the clouds gathering in the sky. He couldn’t remember being this angry since the fourteenth century, when he’d been accused of all manner of demonic wiles and then abandoned in a very cold village, nearly out of miracles, with no nightlife whatsoever. “Wiles,” he hissed under his breath.

Maybe he’d go back to being a snake for a while. It wasn’t the worst way to go. He could hide out in the zoo and miracle the glass away to scare obnoxious children; that was always fun. Maybe he could sneak onto a passenger ship and go see America. He’d been considering the trip since the Boston Tea Party, which had reduced Aziraphale to speechless fury for a solid ten minutes. Anyone daft enough to start a war over flavored water was okay in Crowley’s book. Also, rum was cheaper there, and he was partial to rum for forgetting.

Wily and cunning. Was that what the angel thought of him? (The leashes of all the dog walkers north of the Thames snapped, and two hundred twenty-four dogs immediately sprinted for freedom). Was it cunning to have spent a week tramping through howling wind in the Scottish moors to save Aziraphale having to travel with a head cold? Was it cunning to have choked down seventeen types of slimy sea creatures before finally admitting to the angel that food just wasn’t his thing? Was it cunning to have bought these stupid melting chocolates with their stupid polka-dotted bow, just for the chance of a smile? 

He tugged off his bow tie and tossed it to the curb, where it burst into flame. Well, he wouldn’t make the same mistake twice. Whoever Heaven sent next would be an Enemy with a capital E. He wouldn’t even try to talk to them. It wasn’t like he needed a friend. He had - he had - he stopped in the middle of the street, trying to think of who he had. Not Hastur and Ligur; they wouldn’t understand any references more recent than the fourteenth century. (Ugh, the fourteenth century. He stuck out his tongue in an effort to purge the taste from his mouth.) Not the Dukes; he always got the feeling they were trying to catch him in a mistake, and besides, they creeped him out. There were always humans; entertaining enough, but one sight of his eyes and they’d either pass out or start demanding miracles. Also, their lifetimes were so short that he was likely to wake up from a nap to find they’d died on him. “Well, it’s not like Aziraphale has any friends, either,” he snarled in the direction of the nearest bush, which shriveled up and died. (Did Aziraphale have friends? He’d never mentioned them.) “I don’t need him,” he told the dead bush. It shivered judgmentally. He hissed, and the last remaining leaf puffed into ash.

Whatever. (In the tea-house down the street, all the kettles spontaneously exploded.) He’d show that stupid clueless angel how little he cared. He wouldn’t even say goodbye. He’d just go back to his flat and nap for, oh, a century or so, and when he woke up, it’d be a brand-new day for A.J. Crowley. He stalked off with so little care that he nearly walked straight into Gabriel and Sandalphon. Without thinking, he threw himself behind the nearest doorway. How had they gotten ahead of him? And… where was Aziraphale? He sidled along, ducking behind benches and tall plants, straining to listen in.

“...down here too long,” Sandalphon was saying.

“I imagine six thousand years anywhere but Heaven would certainly grate on the nerves,” Gabriel said. Crowley didn’t have to strain to hear the archangel at all. He talked like one of Aziraphale’s Shakespeareans, enunciating every syllable and throwing his voice halfway to Surrey. Gabriel waved a hand, and all the clouds that Crowley had so angstily gathered wisped to nothingness. Crowley hissed and darkened his glasses against the glare of Gabriel’s white suit. It was the kind of white that begged to be ruined. He had to physically restrain himself from tipping over the ladder of the closest sign painter and marring the perfection with a splash of chalky green. (Gabriel’s white was the stark, blinding absence of an examination room. Sandalphon’s white was a pale imitation of Gabriel’s, the shadow beneath the dentist’s chair, the cracked leer of a yellowing smile. His angel’s white was the creamy comfort of warm milk, the crinkling familiarity of old parchment, the fluffy down of snowfall on --)  
(Blast Heaven and Hell alike, this nap might have to be three centuries.)

“Did you hear him talking about that demon?” Sandalphon asked. He said ‘demon’ like a dirty word, which Crowley supposed it was.

“Yeah, the wily and cunning one?” Crowley muttered, rusting all the door hinges on the block. 

“Wily, cunning, and brilliant?” Sandalphon continued. He shook his bald, gleaming head. “Sounds like there’s been some... fraternizing... going on.”

Crowley thought for a moment he’d forgotten himself and accidentally frozen time. It certainly seemed to stop. At the very least, it was going very slowly. His lungs swelled up like a balloon, and for some reason he couldn’t feel his arms. (Again, what was the point of arms?) Everything was suddenly very bright, and he didn’t think it was because of Gabriel. 

“Fraternizing?” said Gabriel, sounding so scandalized that a passing couple wilted in empathetic shame. “Sandalphon! I’m surprised at you!”  
Somehow Crowley’s glasses had gone missing. Brilliant, he thought, his stomach twisting into all kinds of knots. He tried three times to miracle another pair of glasses before he managed it. 

“I didn’t mean to imply anything,” said Sandalphon, who had clearly meant to imply all sorts of things. “I just think it’s odd, an angel not wanting to come home.”

Crowley, in the business of re-evaluating his entire life, tripped over thin air and fell flat into the gutter. Not wanting? He’d taken the medal, hadn’t he? (Had he?) It was suddenly of the utmost importance that he determine the whereabouts of the medal. 

“Oh, we’ll bring him home,” said Gabriel with a smug confidence that made Crowley want to punch him in the face. “Just as soon as we pick up these suits…”

Crowley bolted up from the gutter, wheeled around, marched halfway back to Aziraphale’s shop, realized he’d dropped the chocolates, wheeled back around, stomped to the gutter, retrieved the chocolates, remiracled the ice block inside the wrapping, wheeled around a third time, and covered the distance to the bookshop so quickly that he broke all current and future records for speed-walking. (He also left skid marks all down the pavement behind him, but that was mostly for show.) Outside the shop, he pulled up short. He did not, he realized, have a plan. He couldn’t exactly waltz in and ask Aziraphale what he’d done with the medal. He certainly couldn’t inquire as to whether the word “brilliant” had been Aziraphale’s choice or Sandalphon’s interpretation. (It was awfully warm for February, wasn't it?) He had to do something. Gabriel and Sandalphon would be back any minute, and Crowley would be damned if he let them go through with an angelnapping. Well, he was already damned, but he would also be very disappointed in himself.

He peeked in the window. Aziraphale was nowhere in - well, no, there he was; it wasn’t a very large bookstore. He was holding a book in each hand and looking back and forth from one to the other. Did he have the medal? Crowley squinted through the streaked glass. It didn’t look like it…

“Oh, bother,” Aziraphale burst out. He threw both books onto the floor and collapsed onto the nearest box, flinging his hands up with a very dramatic sigh. “I can’t take any of you, can I? If only they’d let me stay till Friday --”

He buried his head in his hands. Was he… crying? Crowley felt a sudden urge to hit something, specifically Gabriel. Sunlight winked off a flat object on the box next to Aziraphale. It looked like the medal. That was good enough for Crowley. He miracled himself to the tailor’s shop. Brilliant, he thought, his insides warming with more than demonic flame. And wily, and cunning. Surely someone like that could thwart Heaven itself.

Hm. Now what had Aziraphale said? “Only I can thwart the demon Crowley?” Crowley grinned a grin that reminded passers-by of all the monsters under the bed they’d ever feared. Now there was an idea.

Ten minutes of frantic activity later, he was ready. He heard Gabriel enter the tailor’s shop and rubbed his hands together in anticipation. Oh, this would be good; if he could reverse time as well as stop it, he would go back and get Shakespeare to write a play about this. (He knew for a fact that he couldn’t, as he had spent several decades trying very hard to undo the domestication of horses.) “Davidson?” Gabriel said, his voice carrying perfectly into the alley. Crowley was so pleased with himself that he forgot to be annoyed. “Is my suit finished?”

“It is, my Lord.” Lord? thought Crowley. What title had Gabriel - well, it didn’t matter. “If you wish to disrobe behind the curtain, I shall have it all made ready.”

Here he came! Crowley gave a little skip of glee before be could stop himself. Fabric rustled in the changing room. Crowley cleared his throat. “Are you certain we are unobserved, oh monstrous creature from the bowels of Hell?” he said in the most demonic voice he could muster (he was a bit out of practice, but it was still respectably threatening).

The hulking black creature looming out of the darkness said, “No one is listening, oh demon Crowley.”

If Gabriel had been anyone else - if he’d had a suspicious bone in his body, or anything other than naive bones - he might have noticed that the monstrous creature’s voice sounded an awful lot like Crowley’s. Being Gabriel, he noticed nothing at all. Crowley saw the top of Gabriel’s head peeking up over the changing booth and suppressed another cackle. “Curses,” said Crowley. “If only I could understand why my evil plans are always so brilliantly thwarted.” Pause for dramatic effect. “It’s as if the forces of Heaven have a champion here on Earth who thwarts me…” He coughed. “...thwartingly…”

Probably too much with the last thwarting, but it was such a fun word. Thwart. Changing his tongue to a snake’s, he flicked it in and out of his mouth in a show of irritation. The tailor’s dummy was starting to lean to one side under the weight of all the black cloth he’d piled on it. He kicked it back into place.

“Why, Mister Crowley,” said Crowley-as-creature, “you must not be downcast. I hear news that will bring joy to you and all the powers of Hell. They do say as how the angel Aziraphale, your nemesis, is being sent back to Heaven!”

He was really getting into it now. All those cheesy dramas Aziraphale had dragged him to were coming in handy. He gasped theatrically. “Can this be true? I was going to - to swallow Holy Water in my despair at once more being beaten by the angel Aziraphale.” He tried to say “Aziraphale” with the same disgust that Sandalphon had said “demon,” but he couldn’t quite manage it. “But such excellent news! Only Aziraphale knows my ways well enough to…”

Had he gone overboard on the thwarting? He let the monster take it. “...Thwart them?” it said. This deep voice was really starting to grate on his vocal cords.

“Exactly.” He clapped the creature on the back. It toppled forward. He put a hasty hand on its chest to hold it in place. “Now let us retire to an evil drinking den and drink to the success of evil on this Earth, thanks to Heaven’s foolishness!”

He ended with a spectacular evil laugh loud enough to cover the sound of him dragging the dummy offstage. And... scene, he thought, tossing the dummy away with great satisfaction. There. Let them try to take his angel away now.

There was a clattering noise from behind him, and the tailor screeched. Crowley was willing to bet Gabriel had knocked over the changing booth. “Sandalphon!” the archangel yelled - well, not yelled, he was much too sophisticated to yell, but his voice had certainly taken on some urgency. Crowley grinned and elbowed the dummy, which immediately collapsed, sending black cloth streaming down the alleyway. “Sandalphon! You won’t believe what I just heard!”


	4. Chapter 4

Aziraphale scurried from one end of his bookshop to another, more distraught than he had been since the humans were expelled from Eden. He kept picking things up and losing them. He’d tripped over open boxes five times and over thin air more than that. “Breathe, Aziraphale,” he kept telling himself. “Breathe.” This was supposed to be a reward, a promotion. He should be overjoyed. But then he’d remember some other detail he’d forgotten about life Upstairs - the endless, empty hallways; the inane three-chord music piped into every room; the mandatory Smiting Practice - and distress himself all over again. 

Surely he could sneak in at least one book. He cast his eyes over the piles, the halfhearted organization now completely smashed by his pacing. Nostradamus was, of course, a classic, but he’d always found it trite. He had a very nice illustrated manuscript from an illiterate 12th century monk, whose doodles of various unrecognizable animals led to endless interpretations. Or should he bring a cookbook and attempt to evangelize the other angels on the joys of a macaron? He tried and failed to imagine Gabriel eating a macaron. He’d brought Gabriel some wine once, shortly after it had been invented, and Gabriel had declared it tasted so terrible that he wished he could expel humans from the Garden all over again. After that, none of the other angels bothered developing taste buds. It was only Crowley who had humored him - only Crowley who could tell the difference between a Merlot and a Pinot Noir, or who understood why the cream should always go on a scone before the jam. 

Well, but gluttony was a demonic invention, wasn’t it? He was being ridiculous. Blasphemous, too. He glanced Heavenwards in case anyone Up There was listening. It hardly mattered anymore, he supposed, and he’d already made a resolution not to think about Crowley any longer. He put back the cookbook with more force than necessary. What if he took the --

The bell above the door jangled as the hurricane that was Gabriel barrelled in a second time. Aziraphale blanched and then remembered a second too late that he was supposed to be happy. “Back so soon?” he said, twisting his hands with a nervous smile.

Gabriel, whose crisp new suit made him look even more pompous than before (Stop it, Aziraphale, he told himself sternly, that’s a Crowley thought), gave Aziraphale a forced smile. “Ah, actually,” he said, “we have, ah, recently learned some new information.”

He glanced at Sandalphon, who was lurking in the doorway, rubbing a finger on the doorjam as though expecting the wood to flake off. At Gabriel’s glance, he jumped back to attention and gave him a crooked smile. “Yes,” he said. “We have --”

“It appears we have been too hasty,” said Gabriel, steamrolling Sandalphon, whose smile faltered. “I’m very sorry to say this, but we may have to, ah, delay your promotion.”

Aziraphale stopped twisting his hands. “Delay?” he repeated, cautiously, as though the word might fly off at any moment. “You mean I’d… stay on Earth?”

Gabriel nodded curtly. The smile looked like it cost him an effort.

Aziraphale blinked several times in quick succession. Was he dreaming? He pinched himself. “Ah - for how long?”

“As long as needed.”

“As long as…” he repeated faintly. That could be anywhere from a few days to a few more thousand years. The future, which had slammed shut, expanded bright and glorious before him. He could open his bookshop! He could finish Candide! He could finally take Crowley to that Spanish wine bar he’d been meaning to bring up for three decades now! He could - he could --

“...deepest apologies,” Gabriel was saying, and Aziraphale quickly arranged his face into a mournful expression. 

“So,” said Aziraphale, still not certain this was reality, “I’m… not going anywhere?”

“Change of plans. We need you here. In your…” Gabriel gestured around at the empty shelves, grasping for the word. “Bookshop. Battling evil.”

Battling evil? Whatever was that supposed to mean? Sandalphon, who’d edged sideways past Gabriel, gave Aziraphale a good-natured punch on the arm. Aziraphale winced and tried not to rub the spot. “Keep on battling,” said the angel.

Gabriel was already halfway out the door. “Keep the medal,” he called over his shoulder, and beckoned to Sandalphon, who scurried after him with a final wave.

“But I don’t understand…” said Aziraphale as the door slammed shut. Aziraphale waited a few minutes for them to turn around and come back, to tell him it had all been a joke, to drag him back to Head Office after all. Nothing happened. He began to believe they’d meant it. He raised a hand to his mouth to cover his growing smile. Was he - could he really be safe?

What did it mean, he wondered, that staying on Earth had come to quality as safer than Heaven itself?

The door jangled again. “Hiya, Aziraphale!” said Crowley, swaggering inside with more bounce that Aziraphale had seen since Ptolemy found Alpha Centauri. “Whatcha up to? Good day so far? Ready for the grand opening? Ooh, what’s that, a medal? Shiny, isn’t it?”

He snatched the medal before Aziraphale could stop him and held it up to the light. “Commendation for Great Works - oh, excellent job, well done!” He clapped half-mockingly. “Bit premature, isn’t it, to commend you for a bookshop that’s not even open yet?”

“It’s not for the bookshop,” said Aziraphale, trying and failing to disguise his inexplicable lurch of pleasure at Crowley’s appearance as stern disapproval. “What are you doing here?”

“Came to congratulate you, of course.” Crowley tossed the medal at Aziraphale, who scrambled to catch it, and sauntered around the shelves. “Bit early, though. Must’ve got the dates swapped.” He tapped the side of his head. “Good thing, too - looks like you’ve got a bit of work left, haven’t you?”

“Yes, I suppose I have.” Aziraphale’s momentary joy deflated as he surveyed the piles of books.

“You could just miracle them up, couldn’t you?” said Crowley. To demonstrate, he waved a hand, and a stack of books popped up on the nearest shelf.

“Well, yes,” said Aziraphale, “but - oh, you’ve got them out of order.”

“I’ve alphabetized them, haven’t I?”

“By first name, not last name. And this one isn’t poetry, it’s literature, it should go over here…”

Crowley shook his head and muttered something unintelligible as Aziraphale manually rearranged the books. “Shall I just sit and watch you, then? Cheer you on?” said Crowley, who’d managed to fling his limbs across four boxes at once (Aziraphale had noticed that Crowley had never really got the hang of limbs).

Behind Crowley, another shelf of books had arranged itself incorrectly, this time by title. Aziraphale opened his mouth to tell Crowley that he needn’t have come, since he’d clearly never entered a bookshop before and could hardly be any help setting one up, especially given his penchant for setting random things on fire. The medal blinked in the sunlight. Hadn’t he decided less than an hour ago that he needed to reform his unangelic ways? Didn’t he need to spend less time with the demon, not more, in order to respond correctly the next time Gabriel stopped by?

The title-ordered books, he noticed, were all biographies, one of the few genres meant to be organized by title.

Bugger, he thought, and said, “I suppose I could use some help.”

Crowley grinned and jumped up from the boxes, rubbing his hands together. “Where shall we start? Histories? Prophecies?”

“Crowley, you’re dripping on them,” Aziraphale pointed out, scurrying to remove a first edition from beneath Crowley’s leaking package.

“What? Oh.” Crowley withdrew the package from beneath his arm and blinked at it. “Right. I’ll just put it, um…” He turned on his heel, surveying the room for a book-free spot and coming up empty.

“I’ll take it,” said Aziraphale, reaching for the package. “What is it? It’s leaking something dreadful.”

“No!” said Crowley, snatching it away with uncharacteristic alarm. “Ah, erm, that is to say,” he continued, looking everywhere but at Aziraphale, “it’s, uh, it’s, uh, it’s private.”

The skeptical frown Aziraphale now gave the demon was not feigned. "Didn't you say it was chocolates?"

Crowley squirmed in a fair imitation of his previous snake form. "Mblergh - argh - didn't - euargh - well," he finished eventually, "yes. They're - blargh - yes they're chocolates."

Aziraphale, who'd learned years ago that the best way to deal with Crowley's spluttering was to pretend he hadn't heard lest Crowley embarrass himself so far as to turn into a snake, tugged the package from the demon's hands. He untied the string and peeled back the soaked paper. "Ice?" he exclaimed, unable to stop himself from breaking his silence. "Crowley, did - did you wrap a block of ice?"

"Uuurgh," said Crowley.

Aziraphale frowned and vanished the ice with a wave of his hand. Beneath lay a box tied with a red striped bow. Shaftesbury's Finest Chocolatier was written across the box in looping cursive. He blinked at the box. He’d seen the chocolatier, of course; he was almost always the first to know when a new bakery opened; but he hadn’t yet allowed himself to go inside. The rows on rows of delectable treats seemed almost too luxurious, even for him. “Crowley,” he said, his voice softened and cracking on the second syllable, “you - you really shouldn’t have. This is - this is really quite --”

“Mmssssss,” said Crowley, and turned into a snake.

“Oh, dear,” said Aziraphale, and sat the chocolates on a bookshelf behind him. “Crowley, we’ve talked about this. Come back at once.”

The snake hissed at him from behind a book on tropical vegetation. “That’s quite rude!” said Aziraphale sternly. “Now, come on, I can’t have you shedding all over the place.”

The snake darted across the floor and wrapped itself around a table leg. Aziraphale sighed up at the ceiling. “For Heaven’s sake, Crowley,” he said, “aren’t you supposed to be helping me straighten up? We haven’t got all day.”

He held his breath. He never knew, when Crowley got himself into a state, how long it would last. Sometimes he flickered back so quickly it was as though he’d never transformed at all. Sometimes he disappeared for decades. Aziraphale had his suspicions about where the demon had gone off to during the fourteenth century. He glanced back at the chocolates. It really was almost impossible to imagine the demon, in his ridiculous dark glasses, loitering his way into a chocolatier and choosing anything that ended up tied in a bow. He feared for the poor sales clerk’s health. “Where did you steal these from, anyway?” he said. “Was it a trophy after you’d burned down the shop or something?”

The snake’s tongue flickered in and out of its mouth, but he didn’t run away.

“Would you like me to turn around?” said Aziraphale, still a bit cross. 

A longer hiss, and then Crowley reappeared, sprawled across the floor. “That’s not necessary,” he said, dusting himself off. “Did you know,” he added, “that you’ve got mice?”

“Do I?” said Aziraphale, who certainly hadn’t had mice that morning, and perhaps not up until about three minutes ago.

“Yeah. Mice.” Crowley’s tongue flickered forgetfully out of the corner of his mouth. “Ah - where were we? Oh, right, the, ah - the chocolates, or whatever.” He waved his hand as though the delights were no more consequential than the dust floating around them. “Yeah. Nicked them off a lawyer on the way over. Least, I think he was a lawyer. One of those fancy suits. Last ditch effort to save his marriage, from what I could tell.” He put his hands in his pockets and rocked back and forth on his heels. “Well, too bad. Hope you like them more than she would have.”

“I see,” said Aziraphale, who hadn't believed a word, “you’re pawning off your ill-gotten goods on me, now, are you?”

Crowley shrugged. “I wouldn’t call it pawning - implies you actually paid for them.” He thumbed a finger towards the box. “Listen, are you going to eat them or not? I’ve got a few friends up in the West End who asked me to pick up a souvenir.”

“No, no,” said Aziraphale, snatching up the box before Crowley could retake it. “I’ll keep them.”

Crowley smirked - or grinned - Aziraphale was never quite sure what to call it when a demon did it. “Bully for you,” he said. “Listen, I’d love to stay and help, but I’ve just remembered, I’ve got a - a job upstate.”

“Oh?” said Aziraphale, raising an eyebrow. “Have you?”

“Yeah, real bugger of a case,” he said, kicking the ground. “Probably take a few weeks at least.”

“Ah.” Aziraphale stacked a few books at random to stop looking at Crowley. He felt, inexplicably, disappointed. “That’s a shame.”

“Yeah.” 

“Will you…” Aziraphale cleared his throat and tried to pass off the question as casual. It shouldn’t have been difficult. Why was it difficult? “Will you be missing the opening, then?”

“Course not,” said Crowley, and then, “Ah… maybe. We’ll see.”

Aziraphale dropped a book on oceanic maps and bent to pick it up at the same time as Crowley. They both grabbed one end and stood, neither letting go. Aziraphale regretted for the hundredth time the invention of darkened glasses. The demon’s face was inscrutable, as Aziraphale’s never was. “I’m very sorry to hear that,” he said, and then added, before he could think enough to stop himself, “I would have liked for you to come.”

The moment stretched out so long that Aziraphale thought Crowley might have accidentally stopped time. Then Crowley dropped the book and turned away, furiously rubbing the back of his head. “Yeah, well,” he said, “you know me. Always busy with my demonic wiles.”

Despite himself, Aziraphale snorted. 

“What’s so funny?” said Crowley.

“Oh, nothing,” said Aziraphale. “Just, you know.” Demonic wiles. He glanced again at the striped red bow. “Now, I really must get to work.”

“Sure,” said Crowley, swaggering towards the door. “I’ll leave you to it. Congrats again,” he added from the doorway. He nodded towards the medal, but his eyes were on the books. “It’s a - it’s a - well.” Instead of finishing the sentence, he tipped his hat and swung out of sight. 

Aziraphale shook his head at the closed door. “Demons,” he sighed. Then, dusting his hands off, he turned back to the books. Crowley or no Crowley, this bookshop would open on time.

And, he thought cheerfully, once he’d shelved the lot, he could celebrate with some very nice chocolates.


End file.
